Today, President Obama announced that the Guantanamo Bay detention facility will close within a year. A special task force will be assigned the job of figuring out what to do with the hundreds of detainees still housed there. It's going to be a challenge, because their home countries and other potential havens around the world won't take them back; the only people who don't realize that they are dangerous terrorists are the American left and the Obama administration. So here are some modest suggestions for resolving their status and directing their energies towards more useful pursuits than blowing up children, stoning women to death and kidnapping journalists.
Glacier Monitoring in Greenland
Whatever happens in Greenland stays in Greenland, and so does anyone you send there. Give them each a parka and a tape measure. They can measure how much the glaciers are shrinking and then turn in their measurements at an automated kiosk which will give them food in exchange. Inevitably, when the food packets gradually stop being picked up, we can be comforted by knowing that we've helped out with the food shortage which is threatening the polar bear population.
Mortgage Adjusters
Spending five years in a concrete cell ought to have given them a unique perspective on housing requirements. Let's put them to work helping to renegotiate mortgage terms for people who have fallen behind on their home payments. Do you really want to argue over terms with this guy? ------->
Soylent Green is made out of terrorists! You've gotta tell them! Soylent Green is terrorists!
...and it comes in three flavors: al Qaeda, Taliban, and spicy Sudanese.
Internal Security Police
Rahm Emanuel has proposed a plan to create a civil security force which sounds an awful lot like the kind of secret police forces popular in countries like Iran and Syria. This sort of work should be second nature to our GITMO gang. You'll think twice about writing that blog criticizing Obama when you know that embassy bomber Walid bin 'Attash might stop by to discuss it with you.
Article comments
1 - Jon Sobel
How does "civil defense training" equal a "secret police force?" Unless I'm missing something, this is just conspiracy-theory baiting.
2 - Dan(Miller)
Dave,
Good, humane and thoughtful suggestions every one.
However, I must disagree with your thesis that potential havens around the world won't take them back. Has anyone asked Somalia? It is a
nicewarm place, not too far from the homes of many of them and, with the recent deaths by drowning of several of the Pirates of Somalia, Somalia may wish to replenish her working class. Although there may not be a functioning government there, that should not be an insurmountable obstacle.Dan(Miller)
3 - Cindy D
Dave,
You said you had some spare room didn't you? Obama is going to call on each one of us to do our part.
Some of those guys have skills like welding, blacksmithing, and farming. One has a relative in the states with a cow. I don't think any of them like eggs that much so your safe with your 40.
They all like guns I hear.
4 - Cindy D
You can even start the first chapter of Terrorists Anonymous right there in Austin.
5 - Glenn Contrarian
Dave -
Soylent Green? Dude, your age is showing. That's one of the few movies that still makes me shiver....
But instead of using them to balance out the rabid neo-con radio talk-show hosts, let them replace Bill-O, Rush, Hannity, Savage, Levin, etc. After all, hate is hate, and the only difference between the hates of the two groups...is the targets of their hate.
6 - Roger Nowosielski
Dave,
I actually liked this article. I think your strengths as a satirist are best. I'm being sincere here.
Roger
7 - Dave Nalle
Thanks, Roger. But satire is a lot harder work than writing the usual expository stuff. Helps a lot to have great material to work from, for which I thank all those who conceived of the brilliant idea of shutting down GITMO.
Dave
8 - Roger Nowosielski
Dave,
Apart from whether I agree with you or not on this issue, it is perhaps the most effective method of ridiculing the idea. That's what made people like Mencken and Mark Twain famous. And you do seem to have a knack for it. Great reading.
Roger
9 - Joanne Huspek
I have to agree with Roger. Even though this was twisted in a weird sort of way, I found it amusing.
Hmm... maybe that means I'm twisted too?
10 - Roger Nowosielski
No, Joanne. I think it means that you're human and can respond to tragicomedy.
11 - bliffle
Ah, well, once we solve the problem of re-deploying the Gitmo prisoners, then we have to figure out what to do with their torturers! Are we going to callously throw them into the already overloaded unemployment roles?
Do we re-train torturers for other trades, or do we find new ways for them to employ their existing skills? Re-purposing torture, one might say.
Perhaps we could outsource them to countries that support a more thriving torture business. I won't name names because I don't want to be plucked off the streets and get water-boarded! But you know who they are.
12 - Dave Nalle
Thanks, Roger and Joanne. I wish I could find material that inspired me to write satire with the frequency and quality which Mencken turned out. Surely our contemporary situation should offer even richer material than his pre-war heydey.
Bliff, you hit close to home on the torturers. Virtually no torture happened at GITMO or anywhere under US control. The real torture cases - and they aren't that numerous - were handled through rendition to other countries where there are trained torturers who I'm sure continue to find plenty of work with their local governments.
As for our homegrown torture specialists, I'm sure they can find work writing teen comedy for the CW network or the CBN.
Dave
13 - Roger Nowosielski
It looks like Bliff (judging by #11, at least) has a knack for it, too.
14 - Dr Dreadful
As for our homegrown torture specialists, I'm sure they can find work writing teen comedy for the CW network or the CBN.
There speaks the parent of a teenage girl.
15 - Roger Nowosielski
That's dirty pool, Doc. He was being satirical. But so are you.